VETERAN OF VETERANS

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1362, 28 May 1895, Page 7

VETERAN OF VETERANS

C. W. Couldock Is the Oldest Man on the American Stage. INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. His First Starring Yenture Was In "Tho Willow Copse"—He Stopped Acting When Wilkes Booth Assassinated President Lincoln —Reminiscences. Charles W. Couldock is a veteran of veterans. He is fourscore years of age, bub as an actor he is as good as he ever was, and that is saying a great deal. He is the oldest man on the American stage in point of years of active and continuous service as well as by reason of the" number of winters which have passed over his head without impairing his faculties. Another veteran of the mysterious precincts behind the foot-

lights is Mr. Howe of Henry Irving's company. He is slightly older than Couldock, but he is an Englishman, and is consequently Dot nearly so well known here as the American actor. Who is there that goe3 to the theater at all who does, not remember with pleasure Couldock's magnificent impersonation of Dunstan Kirke, the stern father of Hazel Kirke? He is now playing the rector in Robert"Drouet's play, "Doris," which EfQe Ellsler is presenting this season. Naturally Mr. Couldock has an interesting and apparently inexhaustible fund of reminiscences. After having appeared in England a great many years, lie came to America in 1849 in Charlotte Cnshman's company. He concluded to remain here, and the rest of it can better be told in his own words: "The next year I became leading man in a great New York success, 'The Willow Copse,' just such another play as 'Hazel Kirke.' 1 determined to start on a starring tour with it as the feature of my repertory. I opened in St. Louis in 1853 or 1854 at Ben De liar's Opera House. "Poor Ben De Bar! What a great fellow he was," he went on. "It was through De Bar that I met John Norton. On the street in New York one day De Bar came to me and asked if I had seen 'John.' At that time I had not learned that De Bar's memory was about pone. 'John?' I inquired. 'John who? What John?' 'Oh, I don't know,' De Bar answered. 'He's a good actor and a good fellow.' It wasn't many hours after that until I saw Ben again. He had found 'John,' and then for the first time I met Norton. "The old stock days in this country made actors. Every actor had dozens of things to do in a season, and as a result of the training good actors were graduated year in and year out. Then, under that system a poor player had a chance to command some of the comforts of lite—now he is hustled from city to city, week after week, all through the season. The average young man who plays one part three or six months closes his engagement with little learned. That is the reason that the stock system was better for the players than the plan of today. "How did I happen to give up drinking liquor? Oh, I don't mind telling you. I had been a steady drinker for years—not a drunkard, but an absorber of alcohol. When the terrible murder of President Lincoln was committed, I was so completely unnerved that I gave myself away to the habit. I canceled engagements, drifting to Chicago, where I drowned my grief in whisky. Why was I so wrought up over the affair? Well, I knew John Wilkes Booth intimately. He was an actor. Those are the reasons. Our profession had been charged with poverty, but there was no blood on the escutcheon. I vowed at first that I wouldn't act again until Booth was caught. I kept my word. Indeed it was some time after the man was dead when I resumed my work. Friends in Chicago brought a doctor to me and asked him to do something in my behalf. The physician looked me over carefully Then lie reported that I was sure to die if 1 continued to use whisky, and that if I didn't use it I would die all the sooner from exhaustion. He left a p ascription lor a tonic, which I began to ta.:e that evening. "When I heard the doctor's statement of my case, I resolved to disappoint him. All that night I walked in and about the Tremont House unable to go to my room. Everybody else had gone to bed, but I continued to tramp, a gnawing at my stomach like the tearing of a thousand devils, driving me almost to madness. But I knew that if I got through those 24 hours I would be the victor. I got through, and for weeks I took the tonic that the doctor had left. Soon after this siege a physician suggested I would do well to begin the drinking of beer. After a few months 1 acquired a liking for it, and in a short time it was a source of much satisfaction to me. It was not many years, however, until I was stricken with gout. The doctors said that the beer did it. Since then I drink only ginger ale, and every day I am looking for that to get some sort of an advantage over me. "Let me tell you, young man, that I believe that the introduction of lager beer, as bad as it is for the liver, has wrought untold good in the United States. It has curbed whisky drinking. I remember the day when all youth that drank at all drank whisky. That day is no more. When you find a young man who takes a bit of beer that is usually the end of it. Of course there is a deplorable abuse of whisky now, but the world is learniug to take better care of itself." Mr. Couldock is a splendid pool and card player. He pushes around a billiard cue as lively as any one, a cigar in his mouth, and his Colonel Moberly hat on the back of his head. Occasionally the old gentleman utters a swear word, but of late years his temper, which was a vigorous oik; in days gone by, is much less violent. Many stories are told, nearly all of which Mr. Couldock denies, about that temper. Several years ago, aa one tale goes, the old actor be-

came angered at a female member of the company in which he was engaged. She was a veritable virago, and he didn't wasta many words in getting at the point of what he wiin ted to say to her. "Look here, madamel" he shouted. "Do you know hades is full of such as you?" Then, shamefaced at such a speech to a woman, he retreated. The lady at once asked the manager to demand an explanation of Mr. Couldock. Tbat official did not hesitate. "So she wants an apology?" the old man said. "Well, get the company together and I'll explain and apologize." Ten minutes later the actress, Mr. Couldock and the company were assembled. "Madame," the actor began in a kindly tone, "I said awhile ago that hades was full of such people as you." Then he stopped for an instant. He caught a gleam of triumph in the woman's eye. "Yes, I said that," he resumed, "but I was mistaken. It will not be full until you get therel" With that he stalked out and away from the theater. "In my time," Mr. Couldock continued, "I have played everything among the great parts in classic drama. I have been Richard, Richelieu, Hamlet, lago, Shylock, Othello and all the rest save Romeo. I never played that part because I was never built for any of those sweet, lover parts. Nature did not put me in that sort of a mold. I did Mercutio when Cushman played Juliet, but I never breatiisd a line of Romeo. In the old days, before the fifties, and even after, we used to start in on a week with 'Richelieu' and play 'Richard' on Saturday night. I recall a performance of the Duke of Gloster in Columbus, 0., one night in 1857. The country was in the midst of a panic, and that night in Columbus the people were walking the streets at the hour for the curtain to go up. I could see only six people in the house. I had begun to put on my clothes for Richard, but when I saw that house I got out of them, and throwing the whole makeup on the floor I trampled upon it viciously. The stage manager came in, and I announced my intention of going home. The fellow vanished. Pretty soon he came back with John Ellsler's partner, Vincent. "Look here," said he, "you'll have to go through with Richard." "You don't suppose," I returned, "that I will play before half a dozen people?" "Yes, I do," said Vincent, and then he went on and explained to me something about contract and honor and disappointment until it was not long before I was down on the floor gathering up my Richard suit. In half an hour I went on, shouting: "Now is the winter of our discontent "Ten or a dozen people saw me through, and when I offered to barter my kingdom for a horse the roar they set up made me think that the populace of the town was in front. I was afterward told that the elder Booth never did a better Richard than I presented that night, but I believe that he must have been giving me what you boys in these days call a 'jolly.' I never liked Richard. Whenever it happened that I could skip it, I always did. "Of course I made a great success in 'Hazel Kirke.' That is what might be called 'the hit of my life.' I have played the part of Dunstan Kirke hundreds—yes, thousands—of times, until now it is a part of my nature almost. "Do I think the profession is improving morally and artistically? Well, it is difficult to answer such a question in anything less than a lecture on the subject. Of course the men and women are better kept, better fed and altogether a cleaner, more respectable looking lot than they used to be, but I really have my doubts as to whether the artistic value of their work is improving further, of course, than it is improved by the help that is lent to it by modern stage appliances." Mr. Couldock's only near relatives in this country live at Mount Vernon, N. Y. His special pet is his little granddaughter. When the veteran speaks of her, his eyes light up with love, and he invariably sighs. "She's a wonderful youngster," he said. "She's worth 20 other people to me. I look forward to the time when I can go home to her. My son and she are the only ones I have left. I had a daughter once. She was a lovely girl and an actress with the fire of genius in her soul, but she passed away from me 21 years ago." Couldock is the friend of all the "old timers," as he is also of the younger gene-

ration of actors. He is known and admired by such ornaments of the stage as Joseph Jefferson, John A. Ellsler and many others. If one may venture to predict, judging by his physical vigor, Couldock, the sterling player and genial man, will continue to be one of the bright lights of the American theatrical firmament for many years to come.

A. New Ice Sleigh. One of the winter novelties thus far announced is the sulky sleigh. It weighs 30 pounds, just about the weight of a bicycle. It is made of steel and hickory. The braces are all of forged steel, tempei-ed by hand; the arches are of the best western hickory, bent by hand. The spans or arches that support the driver are divided and lined with hand tempered steel the entire length from center of top to runners. The forging is so made that the steel is tapered gradually from a very thin piece to three-quar-ters of an inch in the center of the truss. This secures all possible lightness, at the same time making the sleigh able to hear the necessary weight. The shafts are similar to those of an ordinary track sulky. The seat is the same and is so attached as to do away with a large part of the horse motion, yet allow the runners to bear easily on the snow. The point of attachment is half way between the runner and the seat, and the draft is very similar to a trotting sleigh. The riding qualities are about the same as in the ordinary track sulky, and the track motion is about the same. The horse is hooked back as close to the driver as in the new style pneumatic sulky, and the seat is as high from the ground, so that the driver can see ahead.